"Haba Haba" (Swahili for Little by Little) is a song performed by Norwegian-Kenyan singer-songwriter Stella Mwangi. It will be Norway's entry at the Eurovision Song Contest 2011. The song was chosen using a mix of televoting, jury votes and an audience vote at the Oslo Spektrum during the national Eurovision pre-selection show Melodi Grand Prix on 12 February 2010. It was made available for digital download a day before it's inital performance in the third semi-final. "Haba Haba" debuted at number nine in its first week of release, before progressing to number one for four consecutive weeks in the Norwegian singles chart. On 10 May 2011, it will compete in the first half of semi-final 1, and is allocated to perform second on the night.
Production and song selection
"Haba Haba" is a pop song with afro-fusion influence, written by Stella and composed by Beyond51 and Big City. The song is bilingual, with lyrics in English and Swahili, marking the first time Swahili or any other East African language will be performed at the contest. The lyrics describes how "a journey of a million miles, starts with one single step". It is a positive, motivational song about how anyone can be whatever they want to be and tells the story of Mwangi as a young girl listening to her grandma ("When I’s a little girl my grandma told me/ That I could be just anything that I wanted to"), who teaches her that she should appreciate the smaller things in life ("When I’s a little girl my grandma told me/ That it’s the little things in life that’s gone make me happy"). The song is based upon actual events as Stella once complained to her grandmother that things did not move fast enough, gaining the reply "Haba haba, Hujaza Kibaba", which is Swahili for it’s the little steps in life that’s going to make you happy.
The song was entered by Mwangi into the 2011 Melodi Grand Prix, the annual selection process for Norway's entry to the Eurovision Song Contest. 21 songs were chosen to go through to the semi-finals by the national broadcaster NRK, with "Haba Haba" performing in the third semi-final on 29 January. It came out of the semi-final in first place, advancing to the final on 12 February. "Haba Haba" progressed with three other songs to the Gold Final, following the elimination of the other finalists. Voting was conducted via a mix of the audience vote at the Oslo Spektrum (where the song beat its nearest rival by more than twice the votes), jury votes split into four different regions (where Stella came second in two regions and first in two, leading to her winning the overall jury vote) and televoting in two different regions (with "Haba Haba" winning in both). "Haba Haba" was the overall winner of the night with a total of 280,217 votes.
Track listings
Charts
Peak positions
Chart precession and succession
See also
References
Retrieved from :
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haba_Haba
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